


One Minute Forty Seven Seconds

by BlueSkyFlying



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Narada
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 03:20:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14035068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueSkyFlying/pseuds/BlueSkyFlying
Summary: Captain James Kirk is invited to give a lecture at the Academy





	One Minute Forty Seven Seconds

 

Captain James T. Kirk stood outside the door of the lecture theatre and took a deep breath.   He had faced down a lot of things in his life but this was something else again. On a short layover at Earth, he had been scheduled to deliver a series of three lectures on command.

His first impression, this is a joke, right?

Barely a year in command and always up before the Admiralty for something or other, why on earth (or on any other Federation world for that matter) would they want him teaching the next generation of cadets.

His second thought had been, man they _really_ don’t like me.

His promotion to Captaincy after the Narada had not been popular, with some of the Admiralty and particularly with the number of seasoned officers who had been on manoeuvres in the Laurentian system at the time, the ones who had survived and who had felt that the devastation of the main fleet at Vulcan would, at least, offer them promotion opportunities if nothing else.

Kirk had seen too much written on restroom walls and had heard too much behind his back not to be aware of that. This invitation (order) was another attempt to trip him up publicly. There was a clear expectation that he would have absolutely nothing of any value to deliver and generally humiliate himself.

Well, you know what? What he was planning might not be academically sound, but by Hell, it was going to be memorable.

He smiled to himself, donning self confidence like a cloak of invisibility. Jim Kirk disappeared and Captain James Tiberius Kirk opened the door and walked in.

The command class was supposed to be twelve senior cadets. The hall was full and a lot of them weren’t cadets. Admiral Barnett himself was sitting at the back, to the obvious discomfort of the cadet in the next seat.

Kirk grinned and waved as he saw Sulu and Chekov there, presumably to provide moral support.

He took a quick glance round the lecture theatre. He had spent most of the night before setting up his equipment and testing it.

He moved to the front and the hall hushed.

“Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I would like to thank Star Fleet Command for the opportunity to be here today. They evidently believe I have something of value to offer.” He paused, to allow the ripple of amusement run round the room, aware that a good fifty percent of those present were snickering at him, not with him.

“This is a course for command track students and my theme this morning is ‘Telling it like it is’.”

There were a few puzzled faces.

“Or perhaps ‘ _showing_ it like it is’ would be more appropriate.”

He pushed a button on his padd and - the whole room went crazy.

The lighting went dark and then back on again flashing Red Alert madly, the klaxons loud in everyone’s ears as they all jumped.

The main screen came on showing space and then suddenly ships coming towards them out of nowhere. The room shook with blasts. RED ALERT! RED ALERT!

With a swish of his finger the attacking ships left the screen and in a demonstration of impressive holo-technology were zooming round the lecture room over the heads of the students, who ducked reflexively as phaser cannons fired over them and photon torpedoes exploded. The darkness of the hall was alight with the red flashing alert signs and phaser trails.

Over the klaxons a soundtrack of people shouting.

Kirk’s own voice _“What the fuck! Get those screens up. Sulu, evasive manoeuvres.”_

Lots of other voices shouting over each other.

_“Screens up - damage to rear nacelle.”_

_“We have atmosphere venting – “_

Another blast.

_“Screens 70%.”_

_“Chekov, full phasers.”_

_“They’re all round us! Captain, what do we do?”_

_“ Target that lead ship – we’re wasting firepower going after all five at once!”_

_“Screens 55%”_

_“Plasma leak on Deck Six. Evacuation in progress.”_

Another blast leaving the room shuddering.

_“Shield 3 is down, repeat Shield 3 is down!”_

_“Come round Sulu, keep our flank covered! Keep focused, people. One thing at a time.”_

The room exploded into a mass of white light as the shields of the lead attack ship gave and she blew in a huge anti-matter explosion.   Some of the students were on the floor by now trying to hide under their seats, hands over their ears deafened by the blast.

_“Great shooting, Chekov, now pick your next target. Sulu, cut it out from the rest of the pack, and stay with it!”_

_“Shield 4 down to 30%!”_

_“Hard about! Scotty, we need those shields back up!”_

Another massive explosion as another of the attacking ships fell to the Enterprise’s superior firepower and then suddenly the remaining three ships streaked off into the black.

Silence.

The lights came back up leaving cadets (and other more senior personnel in the audience) gasping and looking at each other in shock.

Kirk gave them a minute or two to catch their breath.

“We were on a standard patrol in friendly space, our shields were down, we weren’t expecting trouble. Those five ships came out of nowhere. They were evidently using some form of cloaking technology, possibly of Romulan design. There was no attempt at contact, just immediate attack. To this day we don’t know who they were or why they attacked. There was no time to try to contact them, no time to try to identify them and afterwards there wasn’t enough to salvage to reach a conclusion as to their source of origin. As you have seen, we went from a quiet routine morning straight into red alert. It wasn’t a drill. Eleven people died and a lot more were injured. Who knows how many died on the two ships we hit. We spent almost three weeks repairing the damage from an attack that lasted a total of one minute forty seven seconds.”

He looked around at them as they clambered back into their seats. “One minute forty seven seconds from start to finish, ladies and gentlemen and it’s because of the skill of two officers that we are here today - Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu at helm and Ensign Pavel Chekov at phaser control. They’re both sitting at the back so give them a cheer and make them squirm.”

(They did and they did respectively.)

“Now I am supposed to give you the wisdom of my experience in dealing with situations like this. All I can say is, have a great crew, remember that regular drills do actually pay off sometimes - oh, and always keep a clean pair of underpants to hand. Thank you.”

 

Epilogue

Admiral Pike outside chatting with Commodore Chang, was surprised to see the stream of people coming from the lecture theatre not five minutes after they had gone in.

“What’s the matter?” he asked Barnett as he exited. “Something go wrong?”

“No,” said Barnett bemusedly. “The lecture’s over.”

“Already?” said Pike in disappointment. “Damn, I wanted to hear it. I was only a few minutes late.”

“Yeah, well Kirk didn’t hang about.”

“But what did he say?”

“He told them to keep a clean pair of underpants handy – and some of them probably need them after that.”

“What?”

“That was the most incredible holo-tech I’ve seen – we’ve got to find out where he got it from.” Then seeing the teacher himself leaving, in laughing conversation with his two junior officers. “Kirk, over here!”

Kirk came over shouting “See you later” over his shoulder at Sulu and Chekov.

“Yes, Admiral, sir? Did you enjoy the lecture?”

“Incredible tech, Kirk. Just incredible. I thought those fighters were actually in the room. Where did you get it?”

“Oh, I like to tinker, sir.”

Barnett’s mouth fell open.

“You do realise that there was supposed to be “ Pike looked at his watch, “another two hours fifty five minutes.”

“Oh, I expect they’ll spend at least that discussing the battle.”

“I expect they will.”

“And next week we’ll be discussing what we learned from that situation.”

“Which is?”

“Basically not to worry about the Kobyashi Maru where I had at least twenty minutes of thinking about strategies and moving from one to the other as the Klingon ships multiplied. Totally unrealistic. Things move a lot faster in the real world. You might need to speak to Commander Spock about reprogramming. Oh, and I still don’t believe in no-win scenarios. And now, if you’ll excuse me sirs, I have a meeting with Supply.”

The End

 


End file.
